Steve Candland, managing director for the United States branch of the London-based international recruitment network, Angela Mortimer Ltd., at a Greenwich estate for which his firm selected and placed the domestic staffing in backcountry Greenwich, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. less

Steve Candland, managing director for the United States branch of the London-based international recruitment network, Angela Mortimer Ltd., at a Greenwich estate for which his firm selected and placed the ... more

Steve Candland, managing director for the United States branch of the London-based international recruitment network, Angela Mortimer Ltd., at a Greenwich estate for which his firm selected and placed the domestic staffing in backcountry Greenwich, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. less

Steve Candland, managing director for the United States branch of the London-based international recruitment network, Angela Mortimer Ltd., at a Greenwich estate for which his firm selected and placed the ... more

Steve Candland, managing director for the United States branch of the London-based international recruitment network, Angela Mortimer Ltd., at a Greenwich estate for which his firm selected and placed the domestic staffing in backcountry Greenwich, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. less

Steve Candland, managing director for the United States branch of the London-based international recruitment network, Angela Mortimer Ltd., at a Greenwich estate for which his firm selected and placed the ... more

He is managing director of Angela Mortimer-US, a traditionally British domestic staffing firm that recently opened offices in Greenwich and New York City. These days, times are definitely good.

"When you look at the growth of the demographic of the 1 percent, and the top 50 percent of the 1 percent, and the 1 percent of the 1 percent, that growth demographic, fairly or unfairly, is a very fast-growing community," he says.

It's Candland's job to understand the needs and desires of these ultra-high-net-worth families. Many reside in Fairfield County, but they're also in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere.

It's a low-profile industry, but a very competitive one. While serving as a middleman between wealthy families and the people looking to work for them, Candland screens discerningly for reliable and good matches. He often creates employment manuals that spell out things like compensation, benefits, vacation time and non-disclosure agreements.

Road to the job

Candland didn't set out to get into this business. Originally from Washington, D.C., he got his MBA from New York University in the '80s and headed to Wall Street. Eight years at Morgan Stanley, he says, convinced him he's better at working with people than at quantitative analysis and other skills that are helpful in high finance.

Eventually, he and his wife, Catherine, co-founded Advantage Human Resourcing, which was based in Stamford and became one of the world's largest staffing firms. In part, he hired support staffers for companies like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. After selling the company in the last decade, he worked a stint at the global executive search behemoth Korn Ferry International.

Over several years, he came to know Angela Mortimer herself -- a woman he describes as "extremely classy" and "very British in every way." Eventually, when he set out to create the company's North American operation, Candland -- a father of three daughters -- called upon an old attorney friend to draw up confidentiality agreements.

Birnbaum had reason to believe that Candland is a great organizer. In 2007, Birnbaum, Candland and several other fathers of Greenwich Academy daughters had to perform a 15-minute Beatles rendition in front their kids at a pre-graduation dinner. The music director, Birnbaum says, was very demanding, forcing the dads to practice for several weekends leading up to the show.

"Steve kind of did an enormous job of organizing this whole thing," Birnbaum recalls. "He had a lot of these masters of the universe singing and dancing; it was great."

Crowded field

That enthusiasm could come in handy. This industry is, of course, rather competitive in a place like Greenwich. The oldest such company in town, Lindquist Group, dates back to the 1890s. It's operated here for over 30 years.

"I think that we have probably the strongest client list in the industry," says Judeann Warner, senior counselor and COO of the Lindquist Group. "Many of our clients are on the Forbes 100 list."

The company is headquartered in Greenwich, but also has offices in New York City, Palm Beach and Miami -- which it leverages, since many clients have multiple homes.

There are regional differences, she says. In New York City, chauffeurs are in high demand. In Florida, families more frequently are looking for butlers. Both jobs are in demand here, she says, but Greenwich is an especially hot market for estate and property managers.

Bonus points to the prospective estate manager who can not only take care of things that break around the various homes, but also cut costs in the household budget. "And if they can use a computer, that's great," she adds. "Lots of people have smart homes now. Those are kind of the newer things we're seeing in Greenwich."

Room for growth

For Candland, there's lots of room to grow. He currently has a small space in Greenwich and a spacious office in New York City, on the 20th floor of a Madison Avenue skyscraper.

These days, his website gets about 1,000 visitors a month, he says, more than half of which comes from Europe -- where the company is better known, but where clients also may be looking to take up residence in the U.S. Candland hopes to flip the website trend by year end.

Typically, his clients pay him a fee of 20 to 25 percent of a new employee's first-year salary. If a family hires a personal chef for $100,000 a year, Candland will pull in $20,000. These days, the European operation has annual revenues of about $90 million a year, he says. His North American upstart is targeting $3 million to $5 million for 2014.

High in demand

What's the fastest-growing job in Greenwich?

One is a personal assistant to whichever spouse is staying home, he says, which is typically a wife. Such a family might already have a team that includes a housekeeper or two, a landscaper, a driver, a cook and a nanny. The personal assistant can help free up additional time.

"They have a busy social life, a busy charity circuit schedule," he explains. "Their husband is typically very busy with lots of work obligations, and travel situations. They're looking to accomplish amazing vacations with their kids and friends."

Candland pauses, breaking into a sly grin.

"I hate to call it a status symbol, but there's a little of that too," he says. "'I'll have my gal call your gal. We'll get that lunch scheduled.'"